The Metropolitan Police has confirmed it is ending its investigation into who leaked politicians' expenses information to the media.
The Met's Economic and Specialist Crime Command met lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service yesterday to discuss misuse of Parliamentary expenses. The group will meet again, but for now there …

SO basically...

Whilst I'm extremely pleased...

I'd always assumed that it's the job of the police to collect evidence, and that it's the CPS that should decide whether to prosecute. Can somebody correct me on this, or is it that the CPS instructed the police to drop the investigation and that journalists ignore the distinction.

Still bloody pleased the common sense prevails, and that Michael Martin suffers the ignominy of being the first MP in over 300 years to be ousted from position of Speaker of the British House of Commons.

They were probably ordered to drop it

Follow the money

It is good that the data came out, but at the same time someone has profited from their dishonesty by selling it to the media, which is not OK with me and suggests their motives may not have been purely one of whistleblowing. Corruption/dishonesty is a bad thing to occur in all levels of public service and they deserve to be exposed.

There is also the question of whether the leaker had any party political motiviation behind leaking the data and who it was sold to. I'd like to know, regardless of whether this is something prosecutable or not.

Ok, copied and pasted...

... from the other post that about to drop off "Earlier Stories" listing...

(I wish this was not a joke alert - and I usually vote Labour)

"Her Majesty announced today that she will be unavailable to add her seal to parliamentary decrees.

She explained to her PM (GB) that events such as that termed the "credit crunch", indebtedness of the realm, MPs making a mockery of the Court of the Commons and unprecedented resignation of speaker of the Commons Court have forced her to review the role of government as decided in the Commons.

By withholding her seal Her Majesty has created a constitutional crisis in which the Commons cannot meaningfully govern the country.

She further explained that in matters of such importance in the realm it is essential to move forwards as swiftly as possible.

In another matter that is partly related HM asked for person or persons unknown and responsible for providing details of malpractice in the Court of the Commons to present themselves to the Privy Council as a matter of urgency as she will confer a knighthood to each and all involved."

"Senior civil servants rejoiced with joy upon hearing the news however if appearances were anything to go by, lost their gusto soon afterwards once they learned that Her Majesty's interim measures are to limit all salaries to a maximum of 90,000 GBP per anal effective immediately.

Quite a large flock of civil servants were seen to be running in the direction of the Fees Office located in Court of the Commons and were heard to be asking for early retirement based on final salary before the cuts are due to be introduced."

What about the innocent victims

The leaked data did not only contain personal contain about MPs, their account numbers etc, but of MPs staff, anyone having done paid work for a MP, MPs secretaries/researchers and their bank details and addresses. Itemised phoned bills with number who had contacted MPs in confidence, where are their rights to protection and justice as victims of crime. The Police and CPS have today torn up the Data Protect Act by picking and choosing what crimes they pursue.

Re: Whilst I'm extremely pleased...

>I'd always assumed that it's the job of the police to collect evidence, and that it's the CPS that should decide whether to prosecute.

The police collect evidence and if they think there is a chance of conviction pass it on to the CPS who decide whether to prosecute. If they passed on everything they investigated the CPS would be overwhelmed.

>and that Michael Martin suffers the ignominy of being the first MP in over 300 years to be ousted from position of Speaker of the British House of Commons.

No, he resigned. He probably would have if he hadn't but he did so he doesn't.

Hmm...

@ J Ford, I don't think this was likely to have been party political. All the parties seem to have been pretty much equally damaged (although I didn't see an awful lot of hassle for the Lib Dems, other than some piss-taking for claiming on biscuits...) Nevertheless, the "Public Interest" thing was probably extremely salient; given that some of the more egregious fraud would have been covered up in the "edited highlights", I rather think the perpetrator is owed a debt of thanks. Since he was paid for the data, I reckon that's even stevens.

I wonder whether the brown envelope was expensed...

@Cameron, I don't know about that analogy. If I were paying a valet*, then it's no business of mine what he spends his wages on, whatever proportion of my income they may be. But if I were paying my valet to handle my finances and household for me as well, and suddenly discovered that he was living rather significantly beyond the means of the wage I was paying him, and at the same time the household silver was disappearing, a mysterious hidden webcam turned up in my teenage daughter's bedroom and I kept losing my wallet, well then I'd probably start asking questions. And looking for new help...

...And giving serious thought to doing my own washing up for a change...

investigation?

Rest of World

The rest of the world must be laughing at this; to think the UK has a seat on the UN Security Council.

I just found out today (watching the news) they they say prayers in the commons before it sits. Amazing - and they are not even multi-faith so I have no idea what Hindus, Moslems, Jews and athiests are supposed to do while they are being said:

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/business/prayers.cfm

Then I looked around that site and found it that it's operating like it was centuries ago - the Royal Navy modernised and got rid of free Pussers Rum but MP's have kept their snuff (p8) :

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/g07.pdf

Actually, the rest of the world seems disinterested in this MP expenses controversy - the BBC news release on DIGG only received 6 diggs :

Telegraph

Well. UKIP did quite well out of this one and the flier campaign started in our area on pretty much the same day..... The Telegraph gets quite a few (unrelated) references in the UKIP policy documentation....

This information was in the public interest. But it has been targeted, released, controlled and restricted. Someone is using this to try and change the political landscape. Who? I don't know. But it worries me in the same way that little message box that pops up on my screen whenever I type in my credit card details with the words "Yum, Yum" does.

I am not accusing any newspaper or political party (Mainly because I am far to cowardly and don't have anything to back up my speculation). But take a look at who the winners and losers from the fall out are!

Paying for stolen financial data

The morality of paying for stolen data may be questionable to us, but it is quite acceptable to the government. Last year, the inland revenue bought the bank account details of offshore accounts in Lichtenstein that had been stolen from an ex-employee:

Is the tide finally turning?

wackie jaquie brought to task over banning a DJ and expensing porn, politicians running scared and calling themselves the publics servants on TV, the EU taking UK to court over privacy invasion, the stand down on DNA deletion, no three strikes and out...

Just waiting to hear the national ID has been massively scaled back and BT will be dropping Webwise, aka Phorm, aka 121media to make my month.

After all, the BBC is teaching the masses about botnets and Trojans (ie, things that watch what you do online), which is a small step from how BT advertise how Webwise works...

http://www2.bt.com/static/i/btretail/webwise/

>against online fraud by checking the sites you visit... ...For example, if you search for a weekend trip to Paris or visit pages related to Paris, BT Webwise would replace the standard ads that would normally appear with advertising... ...After assessing the findings, we will make further announcements on this Website concerning the launch of the service for BT Total Broadband customers<

@Chris W

Thanks for clearing that up about the CPS. As for him being ousted, I stand by that statement seeing as he clung on until it was even clear to him that he had no support. Saying "I'll go for the unity of parliament" conveniently ignores the fact that he had absolutely no choice.

He may believe that he's saved face this way, but those of us outside the wall erected for MPs to hide behind will remember Michael Martin for being so useless that MPs had to break with 300 years of tradition to get shot of him.

I wish they would find the person...

...who leaked the information on the expenses. We need to know so we can make him/her our next prime minister, as this person seems to have the interests of the public at heart, which is more than can be said about any of the sorry bunch of crooks who are ruining - sorry, I mean running the country at the moment.

@John Bayly

I'm with you on this.

Sir John Trevor, the speaker in 1695, also "resigned" (i.e. jumped before he was pushed).

The funniest thing for me about this whole thing is how the Telegraph have sat on the detail and are doing a daily expose of an individual member's expenses. It must be fun in the HoC tea room every morning as the honourable members open their copies, one goes "OHSHIT!" and the others breathe a collective sigh of relief. A sort of political version of the Chinese Water Torture, if you like.

Well I never...

@ Well I never...

We got one the other day too.

Amused to see the distinct lack of anyone on the leaflet that appeared to be of a non-Anglo Saxon origin. Although given the fact that they used a Polish Spitfire, chances are the people pictured are Lithuanian immigrants or something similar. That would be just too funny.